Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-02-25

heaveni L could KISS my very uuSt WIFI
ecstasy of affection.
For her my tears shall fall,
For her my prayers ascend,
To her my tolls and cares DO given
Till tolls and cares shall end
"Perfumed smoke" says Solomon, in the
words following my text. Not like the
fumes coughed up from the throat OF q
steam pipe, or poisoned with the gases of
chemical factories, or floating in black
wrath from the ~conflagration of homesteads,
or sulphurous from blazing batteries, but
sweet as a burning grove of cinnamon or
jungle Of sassafas, or the odors of q tenn
pie censor. "Who is this that cometh out
of the wilderness like pillars of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and frankincense?"
Hear it, men and women everywhere. that
the advance of the genuine church of Christ
means peace for oil nations.
Victor Hugo, in mis- book entitled "Nine-
ty-three," says: Nothing calmer than
smoke, but nothing more startling. There
are peaceful smokes, and there are evil
ones. The thickness and color of q line Of
smoke make the whole difference between
war and peace, between fraternity and
hatred. The whole happiness of man or
his complete misery is sometimes expressed
in this thin yapor which the wind s~catters
Mt will" The great Frenchman was right;
but 1 go further, and say that as the king
dom Of God advances like pillars of smoke,
the black volumes belching from batteries
of war and pouring out from portfolios Of
ships will vanish from the sky. ,
A distinguished gentleman of the late
war told me recently that Abraham Lincoln
proposed to avoid our civil conflict by pur-
chase of all the slaves of the South and
-.AA.a- kl,rn, c,o, 10 no11,,1okDl r,1o%
would be a reasonable price for them, and,
would be required for such n purpose was
announced, the proposition was secuted;
and the North would not have made the
offer and the South would not have ac-
copied it if made. But" said my military
friend, "the war went ", and just the num-
Der of millions of dollars that Mr.. Lincoln
calculated would have been enough to
make a reasonable purchase of all the
slaves were spent in war, besides all the
precious lives that were hurled away in the
two hundred and fifty battles" In other
words, there ought to be some other way
for men to settle their controversies with
out wholesale butchery.
The church of God will yet become the
arbiter of nations. If the world would
allow it, it could to-day step in between
Germany and France and settle the trouble
about Alsace and Lorraine, and between
Russia and Bulgaria, and between Eng
land and her anita. onists, and between all
the other nations that are flying at each
others threats, and command peace and
disband armies and harness for the pillow
the war horses o being hitchedto ammu-
milton wagons OF saddled for cavalry
charge. That time must come, or through
%1,1 ;oouoorol foa;:k-x E~- ol~2-~
men and blowing up cities and
so that we can kill a regiment easier
than we could once kill q company, and
kill a brigade easier than we could once
kill a regiment, the patent Offices of the
world more busy than ever in recognizing
new enginery Of destruction, the human
race will after a while go fighting with one
arm, and hobbling with one foot, and
stumbling along with one eye, and some
ingenious inventor, inspired of the arch
angel of all mischief, will c~ontrive a ma
chine that will bore a hole to the earth's
center, and some desperate nation will
throw into that hole enough dynamite to
blow this hulk of a planet into fragments,
dropping like meteoric stones on surround
ing stellar habitations.
Peace! Forever roll off the sky the
black pillars Of smoke from the Harengos
and Salamancas and Borodipos and Sc
dams and Gettysburgs of earth! And right
after them, roll into the heavens the peace
full vapors from the chimneys of farm
houses and asylums and churches and
capitals of Christian nations, and as the
sunlight strikes through these vapors they
will write in letters of Jet and gold all over
the sky from horizon 10 zenith: "Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace,
goodwill to men!!" Then let all the mem
of-war fire q broadside and all the forts
thunder forth a resounding volley, and the
earth be girdled with the cannonade over
the final victory of the truth.
The time is fastening when there will be
no intidels left except libertines and har-
lots and murderers. Millions of Christians
where once there were thousands, andthou-
sands where once there We're hundreds.
What a bright evening this, the evening Of
the nineteenth century! and the twentieth
century, which will dawn in thirteen wears
from now, will, in ny opinion, bring uni
versal victory for Christ and the church,
that now is marching on with step double
quick, OF, if you prefer the ~tigure..of the text,
is being swept on in the mighty gales of
blessing, imposing and grand and majestic
and swift, like pillars of smoke.
Oh, come into the church through Christ
the door, a door more glorious than that of
the Temple of Hercules, which had two
pillars, and one was gold and the other
emerald. Come in to-day! Come in and
be one of the eternal victors! The world
you leave behind is a poor world, and it
will burn and pass off like pillars of smoke.
Whether the final contiagration will start in
the coal mines of Pennsylvania, which, in
some places, have for many years been
burning and eating into the heart of the
mountains; or whether it shall begin near
the California geysers, or whether from
out Of the furnace of Cotopaxi and
Vesuvius and Stromboli, it shall burst
forth upon the astonished nations. I
make no prophecy, but all biologists tell
us that we stand on the lid of Il world
the heart of which is o raging, roaring, aw-
full flame, and the same day God will let
the red monsters out of their Imprisonment
Of centuries, and New York on fire in 1885
and Charleston on fire in 1865 and Chicago
on fire in 1871 and Boston on fire in 1872
were only ike one spark from q black
smiths forge as compared with that last
universal blaze, which will be seen in other
worlds. But gradually the flames will
lessen and the world will become a great
living coal, and that will take an ashen hue.
n then our ruined planet will begin to
smoke, and the mountains will smoke, and
the valleys will smoke, and the islands will
smoke md tho oooo will cn>ol.